For the love of Ulsan

I woke up early Sunday morning with a plan....I was going to take a tour of Ulsan!
After a quick shower, I caught a taxi downtown to meet up with the tour bus for 10:00am.
Having made this decision late the night before (their website being my source of inspiration), I had not registered to be on the tour, however, as it was early Sunday morning, the tour was not full - and I was able to get a seat. Instructed to wear comfortable shoes and pack a lunch for myself, I settled in (camera and extra battery in my lap) and prepared to experience some of Ulsan's culture and maybe pick up an interesting fact here or there. Looking around, most people appeared to be Korean (I was one of 4 English speaking tourists - the other three were employees for the petrochemical plant..each here on business). I have to admit, I expected more foreigners...but I thought to myself..hey...maybe they want to practice their English.
Now let me stop here and explain my reasoning behind this...
As the website was in both English and Korean, I blindly assumed the tour would be the same. Nothing I had read on their website led me to believe otherwise....once again...so naive (will she ever learn?) The bus began to pull away and our guide stood up, microphone in hand, and began his commentary...in Korean. Patiently, I waited for the English translation, smiling and thinking to myself "this is so great". After several minutes, our guide was still speaking Korean as we moved along the Taewha River. Still not being able to speak Korean, I could pick out a few words such as "Ulsan" and "Taehwa"....hmmmm where the heck is the English?

Rule number 574 - Never assume that since the website is translated into English, that the actual tour will be also translated into English.

So for the next 6 hours, I travelled around Ulsan in a comfortable motorcoach, getting a chance to visit some of Ulsan's most spectacular sites and listening to our guide (who apparently from the laughter of the Korean speaking tourists, was pretty funny) only spoke Korean. At each site, there were signs posted that held a description of the site - both in English and Korean. As I was one of the English speaking tourists on the bus, I was directed to read these signs that were displayed at the various locations. I have to admit, my tour seemed lacking in comparison to the lengthy explanations and, at times, humorous discussions between our guide and the Korean tourists, but as I paid only 5,000won for the tour - no big complaints .
The photos below are of the different places we visited. As there are many, I have also included photos of the description of each site (this also saves me from rambling on too much).
My favorite two places were Jakgwae-cheon and the fossilized dinosaur footprints at Cheonjeon-Ri (so cool). I apologize for not having any interesting facts or 'tidbits' about the sites we visited - perhaps next time I will bring a Korean friend along for the translation.

From the little I have seen so far, Ulsan is an amazing city - it has some incredible scenery...and as the city offers 6 different tours throughout the city, there is plenty more to see.
Enjoy the pics...
Colleen